JFK Airport to Open Pet-Friendly Terminal in 2016

Flying through New York's JFK airport with your pet is about to get much easier—even if your pet is a cow.

New York's JFK Airport may have just welcomed a "woof top" pet exercise area, but animals are set to get a terminal of their very own in the spring of 2016.

From mewing kittens and squawking parrots to prize-winning racehorses and large livestock, the building will be able to care for all sorts of jetsetting pets. And services will stretch beyond just kenneling to include grooming, quarantine, a veterinary clinic, a rehabilitation center, lawn space, an aviary, and an overnight "pet resort." Dubbed "The Ark" (like the one Noah built), it will be the world's only privately-owned animal handling cargo terminal, and will take up about 178,000 square feet in JFK's vacant Building 78. The terminal has been in the works since 2012, when it was first announced with an estimated cost of $32 million.

While the JFK pet terminal will be the first privately owned terminal of this kind, Frankfurt Airport (FRA) has been home to a similar animals-only terminal—the "Animal Lounge"—since 2008. Staffed by 25 animal keepers and handlers, 30 cargo coordinators, and 25 veterinarians, the Lufthansa Cargo pet terminal sees more than 110 million animals traveling through every year, a number almost double the airport's annual average of 57.5 million human passengers.